RAPID
Nitro Member
- Joined
- Jul 8, 2006
- Messages
- 1,136
- Age
- 65
- Location
- Waukee, Iowa
2008 Good Guys
Norwalk, Ohio
Yeah, this is a bit late but I didn't really think I had anything to report from our teams race weekend. Then the more I thought about it and read about everyone else's weekend, I remembered it isn't always about the race winning, but hanging out with good friends and getting to play with our hot rods.
I got to go to dinner with the Speed Merchants Top Fuel team on Thursday night, and again on Sunday. When I went back to the motel, I met some really cools guys from Canada. We all ended up staying up late just talking. They brought a twin turbo street rod down to race along with a neat little Chevy II street car.
We put a new combination in the car and had high hopes on how it would run. The plan was to run it on Friday, and if it didn't do as expected we would have all night to change it back before the runs on Saturday. How does that saying go,,,,the best laid plans----. Anyway it rained all day Friday and no runs were made in any of the classes. The wildest deal was the track crew was out there all day staying ahead of the water. They were sweeping and drying the track all day long. Since we weren't racing it gave a bunch of time to visit with the other racers and fans. Friday night dinner was with Kenny from John Dunn's “dunn and gone” funnycar team. I had to go out to eat where I could order something I knew what it was. Danny and the other guys on the team are hunters. They brought along some “Deer meatloaf” for dinner. It probably isn't a big shock I wasn't going to be eating any of that. We were pitted with Justin and the gang right beside us and all the other funnycars right in the same area. It made it easy to check in on everybody. Well everybody but Kyle of course. His group is always the last to arrive, but never misses a qualifying session, I don't get it. They unload the car and it hauls, pretty neat deal for him, not so much for the rest of us. Congrats to the whole team, yeah even you Mr. Minick, that pass was a very cool run.
OK, so now it is Saturday and we will get a chance at this track which by all accounts is one of the finest anywhere. Judging by the way Sean Bowen's car runs this is going to be fun. Unfortunately, he had some trouble and his race car got wounded at the finish line. The important thing is nobody got hurt and the car can be repaired. We fired up, rolled through the water, and hit it. Man it feels right, motor one solid note and the smoke rolling. I seems that Danny thinks I do too long a burnout sometimes as he has started taking a chair to the line to have a seat while waiting for me to backup. I guess that is a hint. As I lift off the throttle and roll to a stop it appears we have a new option. One of the crew guys has installed a Nitro fountain for the fans to appreciate during our stay on the main stage. I watch it as I put it in reverse while thinking I need to hurry and get this thing back to the line to see if the guys can fix it before we have a “Roasted Rapid”. If it lights off it could get a bit warm here in my office. When Seth my crewguy sees it, he gives me the shut it off signal, and I can see in his eyes he is plotting the “what is the quickest way to escape if it starts on fire” route. I pull the fuel shut off and let the car coast as far back and off to the side as I can before it quits moving. Then wait as Mini-Me makes his run in the other lane. I then said a few things to myself Mom wouldn't like hearing, knowing now we have to go into 1st round with an unproven race setup.
Back in the pits, the good news is it was just a fuel fitting on the barrel valve that broke. We put a new one on, change oil, fill it up with Nitro and now are ready for first round. The bad news is I have Steve Nichols in the Mill Road Boys again. Ray Zeller has that car really hauling, and of course Steve and I seem to race each other quite often when we are at the same race. It must be a yellow car thing. Let's just get it out of the way, Steve and crew whipped us soundly. To say the least, the new combination didn't work as planned. Hey, we had to try it and now we know.
I have to tell you, my buddy Mini-Me made a great run. He was driving that thing like a fuel altered and ended up winning the round. Nice job Joe, you earned that round.
In the pits we leaked the engine and found #8 was unhappy. We discussed it, and then got permission from Troy Coker to make a hit on Sunday. Some of the crew put a new piston in, while the rest went to work on the rear end gear change. I directed all the activity from the hammock of course. When the center section was removed we discovered some internal issues. Lucky Hair from Justin's team, and in fact most of Justin's team came over to help get the axle out that was hung up. It turns out the axle was galled up and not safe to run. Although I was glad to be there with the team, not making a fast pass on a track that nice really sucked for all of us. We put everything back together and put the car in the box for the ride home.
The Geezer Gasser group was there and invited us down for dinner. So we all went down there and spent the rest of the evening just hanging out and having some great food and Pepsi.
Sunday being at the races without a car to race and your team on the road headed home kind of leaves a guy at loose ends. I didn't want to over stay my welcome in any one pit, so I kept moving around. Pretty soon I ran out of funnycar pits, and moved over to the Pipe Rack area. The first thing I noticed is they make all their drivers and car owner's work on the cars. I knew right away this wasn't for me and tried to escape the area before someone handed me a wrench. I escaped Art's pit {the backyard guys} only to find myself in Brad Green's {Speed Merchants} pit and wouldn't you know it David Pace suggested I lend a hand. Too bad for me we know each too well for me to convince him on the hammock “I do nothing” deal. I put on my dark glasses to keep from being recognized while I was working, and settled in to help Brad and the guys who made it all the way to the finals. When helping a different team, it is pretty tough to be an asset and not just in the way. I tried to lend a hand where needed and I hope it worked out. Too bad a gremlin set in that prevented them from winning the whole event, but it wasn't for a lack of effort on their part. David Pace is of course on of the best drivers in the sport, and with John the crew chief, Brad the owner along with the rest of the guys, this car is going to win a heck of a lot of races.
In spite of all the bad weather there seemed like a good crowd came out to watch and see the street rods. There was a ton of very nice race cars there and too many runs to mention. Sean Dewitt drives the Black Rein altered. Kerry Grahams his crewchief and engine builder make a killer combination. Just before it ran Kerry told me he was looking for a 6.98 or so and it ran a 6.99. Very cool. Doug Dunphy “the boogie man” was there driving for another team. He brought his daughter and son with him as well. We met for breakfast on Sunday.
I know I am leaving a ton of stuff out, but I hope you enjoyed reading my “What I did last weekend story”.
Rapid
Norwalk, Ohio
Yeah, this is a bit late but I didn't really think I had anything to report from our teams race weekend. Then the more I thought about it and read about everyone else's weekend, I remembered it isn't always about the race winning, but hanging out with good friends and getting to play with our hot rods.
I got to go to dinner with the Speed Merchants Top Fuel team on Thursday night, and again on Sunday. When I went back to the motel, I met some really cools guys from Canada. We all ended up staying up late just talking. They brought a twin turbo street rod down to race along with a neat little Chevy II street car.
We put a new combination in the car and had high hopes on how it would run. The plan was to run it on Friday, and if it didn't do as expected we would have all night to change it back before the runs on Saturday. How does that saying go,,,,the best laid plans----. Anyway it rained all day Friday and no runs were made in any of the classes. The wildest deal was the track crew was out there all day staying ahead of the water. They were sweeping and drying the track all day long. Since we weren't racing it gave a bunch of time to visit with the other racers and fans. Friday night dinner was with Kenny from John Dunn's “dunn and gone” funnycar team. I had to go out to eat where I could order something I knew what it was. Danny and the other guys on the team are hunters. They brought along some “Deer meatloaf” for dinner. It probably isn't a big shock I wasn't going to be eating any of that. We were pitted with Justin and the gang right beside us and all the other funnycars right in the same area. It made it easy to check in on everybody. Well everybody but Kyle of course. His group is always the last to arrive, but never misses a qualifying session, I don't get it. They unload the car and it hauls, pretty neat deal for him, not so much for the rest of us. Congrats to the whole team, yeah even you Mr. Minick, that pass was a very cool run.
OK, so now it is Saturday and we will get a chance at this track which by all accounts is one of the finest anywhere. Judging by the way Sean Bowen's car runs this is going to be fun. Unfortunately, he had some trouble and his race car got wounded at the finish line. The important thing is nobody got hurt and the car can be repaired. We fired up, rolled through the water, and hit it. Man it feels right, motor one solid note and the smoke rolling. I seems that Danny thinks I do too long a burnout sometimes as he has started taking a chair to the line to have a seat while waiting for me to backup. I guess that is a hint. As I lift off the throttle and roll to a stop it appears we have a new option. One of the crew guys has installed a Nitro fountain for the fans to appreciate during our stay on the main stage. I watch it as I put it in reverse while thinking I need to hurry and get this thing back to the line to see if the guys can fix it before we have a “Roasted Rapid”. If it lights off it could get a bit warm here in my office. When Seth my crewguy sees it, he gives me the shut it off signal, and I can see in his eyes he is plotting the “what is the quickest way to escape if it starts on fire” route. I pull the fuel shut off and let the car coast as far back and off to the side as I can before it quits moving. Then wait as Mini-Me makes his run in the other lane. I then said a few things to myself Mom wouldn't like hearing, knowing now we have to go into 1st round with an unproven race setup.
Back in the pits, the good news is it was just a fuel fitting on the barrel valve that broke. We put a new one on, change oil, fill it up with Nitro and now are ready for first round. The bad news is I have Steve Nichols in the Mill Road Boys again. Ray Zeller has that car really hauling, and of course Steve and I seem to race each other quite often when we are at the same race. It must be a yellow car thing. Let's just get it out of the way, Steve and crew whipped us soundly. To say the least, the new combination didn't work as planned. Hey, we had to try it and now we know.
I have to tell you, my buddy Mini-Me made a great run. He was driving that thing like a fuel altered and ended up winning the round. Nice job Joe, you earned that round.
In the pits we leaked the engine and found #8 was unhappy. We discussed it, and then got permission from Troy Coker to make a hit on Sunday. Some of the crew put a new piston in, while the rest went to work on the rear end gear change. I directed all the activity from the hammock of course. When the center section was removed we discovered some internal issues. Lucky Hair from Justin's team, and in fact most of Justin's team came over to help get the axle out that was hung up. It turns out the axle was galled up and not safe to run. Although I was glad to be there with the team, not making a fast pass on a track that nice really sucked for all of us. We put everything back together and put the car in the box for the ride home.
The Geezer Gasser group was there and invited us down for dinner. So we all went down there and spent the rest of the evening just hanging out and having some great food and Pepsi.
Sunday being at the races without a car to race and your team on the road headed home kind of leaves a guy at loose ends. I didn't want to over stay my welcome in any one pit, so I kept moving around. Pretty soon I ran out of funnycar pits, and moved over to the Pipe Rack area. The first thing I noticed is they make all their drivers and car owner's work on the cars. I knew right away this wasn't for me and tried to escape the area before someone handed me a wrench. I escaped Art's pit {the backyard guys} only to find myself in Brad Green's {Speed Merchants} pit and wouldn't you know it David Pace suggested I lend a hand. Too bad for me we know each too well for me to convince him on the hammock “I do nothing” deal. I put on my dark glasses to keep from being recognized while I was working, and settled in to help Brad and the guys who made it all the way to the finals. When helping a different team, it is pretty tough to be an asset and not just in the way. I tried to lend a hand where needed and I hope it worked out. Too bad a gremlin set in that prevented them from winning the whole event, but it wasn't for a lack of effort on their part. David Pace is of course on of the best drivers in the sport, and with John the crew chief, Brad the owner along with the rest of the guys, this car is going to win a heck of a lot of races.
In spite of all the bad weather there seemed like a good crowd came out to watch and see the street rods. There was a ton of very nice race cars there and too many runs to mention. Sean Dewitt drives the Black Rein altered. Kerry Grahams his crewchief and engine builder make a killer combination. Just before it ran Kerry told me he was looking for a 6.98 or so and it ran a 6.99. Very cool. Doug Dunphy “the boogie man” was there driving for another team. He brought his daughter and son with him as well. We met for breakfast on Sunday.
I know I am leaving a ton of stuff out, but I hope you enjoyed reading my “What I did last weekend story”.
Rapid
